Ezekiel and The Problem Of Times Of Trouble
Introduction
God called Ezekiel to be a
Ezekiel’s task was to declare God’s message to them. He had to tell them the reason why they were in Babylon. God was punishing them. This was a very serious matter. Ezekiel must also call them to a holy life. Then he could give them the good news. God had a better future for them.
The people did not have hope about the things of God. They did not have much national hope. So, the task would be very hard. It was natural for the
We can all learn from the
Two things were special to every
But their last sight of that
The
God calls Ezekiel to serve these people. They were not all prisoners. We know this from Jeremiah 29:1-23. Many of them had a lot of freedom. But something else was upsetting hundreds of them. They knew why all this had happened. It was God’s punishment. They had offended God. But they still knew that God had a purpose in it all. He would use this time in a foreign land. God would use it for good in the life of their nation.
The enemy king was proud of himself. He had defeated the
We read about Ezekiel’s reactions to this situation. Then, we can learn how to help people who are in trouble.
1 – God always reminds us that he never changes
This is true in any kind of trouble. Our circumstances may change. Our attitude to life may change. But God is the same. He knows all about our trouble. He has not left us alone in our world. He is with us in our suffering and despair. He also gives us all the power that we need to deal with life. This is true whatever those problems may be.
Ezekiel sees a
We will study 3 things in the
Ezekiel was a priest (1:3). So, it was natural for God to speak to him as he did. God used picture language. He used the language of the
1.1 – The ‘living beings’ (1:5-13)
They were probably special
The fire burnt the whole
We may be in times of trouble. We, too, should remember this great fact. Our circumstances can change. But God is always the same. (Read Malachi 3:6; Hebrews 1:11; 13:8; James 1:17 and Revelation 1:4.)
We can feel that we have lost everything. We have lost all that really matters. This can happen when we are suffering and in pain. Sometimes it may even seem that God has left us too. But this is not so.
1.2 – The wheels of the throne vehicle
(Read Ezekiel 1:15-21; Daniel 7:9.) The wheels show that God is
Nothing happens to us by chance. God has full control of each part of our lives. He is not just in some situations. H. L. Ellison wrote a study on the book of Ezekiel. He notes a strange fact. The throne vehicle is coming ‘out of the north’ (1:4). Yet, Jerusalem was in the west.
The north was the direction that the prisoners themselves came from. They took that route to avoid extra hard areas of the desert. In this
There is something else that is interesting. It is about something that the people in Babylon believed. They believed that ‘the north’ was where their gods lived. Ellison gives a meaning for these words. God was showing that he had defeated any gods that might live there. (Note: the book by Ellison is: ‘Ezekiel: the Man and his Message’.) So, the great God feels for his people. He also defeats their enemies. You may be in trouble now. Then you, too, must accept this truth.
1.3 – The Rainbow (1:28)
This declares that God is
These 3 parts of Ezekiel’s first
2 – We must always accept God’s total authority
God is
We often make things worse for ourselves. When trouble comes, our reactions are wrong. There is resistance to God’s authority. We become bitter and angry. We look at our awful troubles. Then we see that other people always seem to have success.
It is much better to do what Ezekiel did. God loves you. Tell him that you are nothing and that he knows best. Amy Carmichael was a great Christian. She suffered very much. But she said that when we accept things, we have peace.
You want your life to be content. You want to be calm. Here is the solution. Come to the throne of a holy and loving God. Declare that he is
Ezekiel recognised 3 things about God. There was the fact that God never changes. There was the fact that God is
3 – What to do if we really want to help other people in their troubles
We must recognise certain things. They are important things. We must have pity and sympathy for them. We must share their suffering. Read Ezekiel 3:15-16. He says: ‘I sat where they sat…’
For a whole week, he did nothing. He noticed the awful state of his own people. They did not share his trust and confidence in God. He just sat among them. He shared their pain and despair. The
We want to be of use to the
4 – God often allows us to have serious trouble
Then we can help other people better. (Read Ezekiel 24:15-27.) It is a very sad story about Ezekiel. What an awful day it must have been. (Read 24:16, 18.) His situation was very hard anyway. Now, he knew that his wife would be dead by evening. But he still went to his work in the morning. He accepted God’s purpose. The evening came. His very dear wife was dead. His first reaction to this news was vital. It would be a lesson to the
God does not use only our words. He uses us as a model. He uses our actions. He uses our reactions to life’s troubles. Ezekiel must not cry aloud. (Read Jeremiah 16:5.) The day after his wife’s death was the same as usual. He did his work as a
5 – There is one more great fact
It is true whatever our troubles may be. God is eager to lift us out of our pain and despair. He wants to give us new life. We began this brief study with Ezekiel’s first
The
Better days were coming. They would return to their own land. God says: ‘I have promised that I would do this – and I will. I, the
This
For Discussion
- God sometimes appeared to great Old Testament leaders in dramatic ways. There was Moses (Exodus 3:1-4; 19:16-20; 20:18-21). There was Elijah (1 Kings 19:9-13), and there was Ezekiel too (Ezekiel 1:4). Why do you think that God did that? Was it to get their attention and to emphasise the importance of the message? Or, is there a more important reason than that?
- Ezekiel was a priest. God showed him great truths in ‘word-pictures’ that everyone could remember. We noticed three of these (Ezekiel 1:5-14, 26 and 28). (They are living creatures, a throne and a rainbow.) Are there other ‘word-pictures’ in that first chapter (Ezekiel 1:1-28)? If so, what are they? And what truths do you think that they intend to show us?
- Ezekiel had a
vision about Jerusalem city’s ‘secret sins’ (Ezekiel 8:1-18). It reminds us in a definite way that God sees everything. And it reminds us that he knows everything. (Note Ezekiel 8:12.) How can we understand that truth best? (Read Psalm 139:23-24; Jeremiah 16:17; 23:24 and Hebrews 4:12-13.) We want the truth to help us in every part of our daily lives. How can we do this? - Sin can spoil the best things that are in life (Ezekiel 8:1-18). This could happen even in a place that seems to be holy. Or it could be in a place where people are very religious. How can we make sure that this does not happen to us?
- Jerusalem city’s leaders were worshipping false gods (Ezekiel 8:1-18). How can we make sure that we are not like those leaders? Remember that there are warnings in the New Testament about false gods. (Read 1 Corinthians 10:6-7 and 1 John 5:21.)
- God told Ezekiel not to be afraid (Ezekiel 2:1-3:15). Think about your study of this passage. And think about other passages in the book. What might have been the reasons for Ezekiel’s fear? And how did God support him?
- Ezekiel and the people of that period had problems. And you might have problems in the same way. What help might you get from one of the
visions that encouraged him? Some examples are the visions in Ezekiel 37 or in Ezekiel 47:1-12.
For More Discussion
- In Chapter 1, Ezekiel tried to describe a
vision . And it was not easy to put it into words. Notice that he repeated words that are similar to ‘looked like…’ (Ezekiel 1:13, 16, 22, 24, 26, 27 and 28). But the details must mean something. For example, do the creatures’ different faces (Ezekiel 1:10) mean something that is special? What about the ‘fire that was flashing’ (Ezekiel 1:13-14)? What might the ‘wheels’ mean (Ezekiel 1:15-21)? And why were their edges ‘full of eyes’ (Ezekiel 1:18)? Do such details have a message for us? - There are large numbers of people who have no homes. They are trying to find a better life in other countries. This is one of the awful things about our own time. And Ezekiel, too, had to work among refugees. The enemy had destroyed the Jews’ capital city, Jerusalem. They had destroyed Jerusalem’s
Temple and the people’s homes. God had to correct the refugees (Ezekiel 7:8-9; 36:16-23). But God’s plan was that they would return to their own land. And they would have a better future. At that time, they were in the foreign land of Babylon. But God continued to love them and to provide for them. (Read Ezekiel 34:11-16; 36:1-37:15.) How did Ezekiel try to convince such unhappy people that this was true? - God told some Old Testament
prophets to do things that would be difficult for anyone. (These things were part of their message.) For example, God told Jeremiah not to marry. And he must not attend funerals, feasts or weddings (Jeremiah 16:1-9). God told Ezekiel not to show his grief publicly when his precious wife died (Ezekiel 24:15-18). Why did God do this? There were such very difficult events in the personal lives of these prophets. And they had to suffer these things in public. What truths did God want to show to the people?